Live and Die Like a Man: Gender Dynamics in Urban Egypt

by Farha Ghannam

Watching the revolution of January 2011, the world saw Egyptians, men and women, come together to fight for freedom and social justice. These events gave renewed urgency to the fraught topic of gender in the Middle East. The role of women in public life, the meaning of manhood, and the future of gender inequalities are hotly debated by religious figures, government officials, activists, scholars, and ordinary citizens throughout Egypt. Live and Die Like a Man presents a unique twist on traditional understandings of gender and gender roles, shifting the attention to men and exploring how they are collectively "produced" as gendered subjects. It traces how masculinity is continuously maintained and reaffirmed by both men and women under changing socio-economic and political conditions. Over a period of nearly twenty years, Farha Ghannam lived and conducted research in al-Zawiya, a low-income neighborhood not far from Tahrir Square in northern Cairo. Detailing her daily encounters and ongoing interviews, she develops life stories that reveal the everyday practices and struggles of the neighborhood over the years. We meet Hiba and her husband as they celebrate the birth of their first son and begin to teach him how to become a man; Samer, a forty-year-old man trying to find a suitable wife; Abu Hosni, who struggled with different illnesses; and other local men and women who share their reactions to the uprising and the changing situation in Egypt. Against this backdrop of individual experiences, Ghannam develops the concept of masculine trajectories to account for the various paths men can take to embody social norms. In showing how men work to realize a "male ideal," she counters the prevalent dehumanizing stereotypes of Middle Eastern men all too frequently reproduced in media reports, and opens new spaces for rethinking patriarchal structures and their constraining effects on both men and women.

Genres: Gender, Egypt, Anthropology, Ethnography, School, Nonfiction, Academic

236 pages, Paperback

First published August 21, 2013

Reviews

[أميرة · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ghannam spent 20 years trying to put her finger on how masculinity is experienced in al-Zawya al-Hamra, a rough neighborhood, in downtown Cairo. Boys are socialized early on to embody manliness through displaying bravery, suppressing emotions, successfully navigating the space in and around al-Zawya, providing for family, avoiding harassment by the police, and learning when and how to use violence. The book beautifully captures how the women discipline and pressure the males to conform to a long list of seemingly contradictory masculinity “norms” like showing both dominance and tenderness. I especially liked how her balanced ethnography challenged some of the strongly held stereotypes about working class men. Learning how much al-Zawya men invest in their looks and how much they’re judged by it (especially by the women) was an unexpected surprise. She didn’t exactly nail it when conveying the social stigma of some of the terms she translated, though. Being called tarbiyyet niswaan (the product of women’s upbringing) in al-Zawya certainly implies something far graver than mere “unsuccessful parenting” (43). I also didn’t see the point of some of the comparisons she made between al-Zawya kids and her daughter who was well fed and played gymnastics (bragging?) but, all in all, a good read hands down.

[Julia Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

The stories were fine and easy to follow I just don't care to hear about men's struggles

[ZDR · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hesitate to rate this book from a scholarly perspective, because I come from a very different disciplinary background. I'm not an anthropologist, and I deal more with the quantitative than the qualitative. So I can only review this as someone with a strong interest in the issue of masculinity, particularly as it manifests in the Arab world.

With that being said, then, I'll start out by saying that this is a very good read. Farha's style is extremely lucid and easy to read. Through the stories of a handful of subjects, she weaves an intricate and subtle image of what it means to be a man, both from one's own perspective and the perspective of the community, in the Cairo neighborhood of Al-Zawiya.

The danger that always exists is generalizing any observations and conclusions to a larger scale. Does what applies to Al-Zawiya apply to the rest of Cairo? It's a safe assumption. What about to all of Egypt? Maybe, but there are surely differences that arise in less urban areas. How about to the Middle East as a whole? Some concepts will apply, others will not, especially in culturally different areas such as the Arabian Gulf states. To her credit, Farha Ghannam does not make any attempt to generalize, and so this problem doesn't arise.

I found this book to be an important work that should be read by anyone with an interest in the Arab world. Yes, that is a broad statement, but the book, short as it is, goes some way to counter the lazy and inaccurate narratives of the evil and hateful Arab man who oppresses his womenfolk and worships a vengeful god. This book fleshes out the realities of the Arab man (at least in Al-Zawiya), and gives the reader a real picture of the pressures and realities that surround him.

Four stars. A good, easy and yet important read. I just wish it was longer.

[Sara Salem · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book that shows the complex ways in which gender and masculinity are constructed in urban space in Cairo. It shows how important ethnographic work is to gender studies in the Middle East.

[Tess · Rating 4 out of 5]

really interesting and educational!